Located at Tahrir Square of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, the Egyptian Museum is the abode of the vastest exhibitions of the ancient Egyptian art and artifacts on the planet. Also known as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and the Cairo Museum, it houses nearly 1,20,000 items out of which the typical ones form the showcase, while the rest are kept in the storerooms. Packed with mummies, relics, and pharaoh’s treasures; the museum holds the most recently discovered mummy of Tutankhamun along with his 1700 items of treasures including the gilded mask.
Structure and Collections
The Egyptian Museum is made up of two main floors namely, the ground floor and the first floor along with 107 halls.
The Ground Floor
The ground floor holds a huge collection of papyrus and coins that belong to the Ancient era. You will find that these several papyrus pieces are small fragments, but in real, they were not so small – all thanks to their decay since two millennia. Further, these pieces are inscribed with text of many languages – Greek, Latin, Arabic, and the Ancient Egyptian writing language of hieroglyphs. Speaking about the coins here, you will come across gold, silver, and bronze coins that are Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Islamic ones. This is a good proof to support the idea of the Egypt trade with these sects of the world in the olden days.
Besides these papyrus pieces and varied coins, there are also artifacts of the New Kingdom whose time was around 1550 B.C. Among these, you can spot different big statues, tables, and coffins.
The First Floor
On this floor, you can view the artifacts belonging to the last two dynasties of the ancient Egypt. Among these are the objects from the burial chambers of the Pharaohs Thutmosis III, Thutmosis IV, Amenophis II, Hatshepsut, and Maherpen. Further, many of the items were actually found in the Valley of the Kings, where all the pharaohs are buried. It is certainly here that you can wonder at the mummies, Tutankhamun treasures, and jewels.
Here, the Royal Mummy Room offers 27 royal mummies of the pharaohs. Once closed due to the President’s order in 1981, it was again opened in 1985 with less number of mummies of New Kingdom’s kings and queens on display. Currently, there are about 9 mummies out of which one is of the latest found mummy of the Queen Hatshepsut. In addition, the adjoining room holds some good mummified animals and birds.
Sections
The Egyptian Museum is divided into several sections in the following sequential order.
- First Section:
This is the holder of the Tutankhamun’s treasures. - Second Section:
Here, there are monuments of the pre-dynasty and the Old Kingdom era. - Third Section:
This is the home of the monuments that come from the first intermediate period and the Middle Kingdom. - Forth Section:
This is packed with the monuments of the Modern Kingdom. - Fifth Section:
There are monuments of the late period, Greek, and Roman era. - Sixth Section:
This is the house of coins and papyrus. - Seventh Section:
Come here to see the sarcophagi and scrabs.
The timings are daily from 9 am to 4:30 pm and the entry fees are £e50 with extra £e100 for the Mummy Room, if you wish to visit it.
